


Fated

by new_kate



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Everyone Loves Hawke (Dragon Age), F/M, Happy Ending, Hawke always the Champion, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Self-Loathing, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Terrible People Skills, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-01-30 20:13:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12660609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/new_kate/pseuds/new_kate
Summary: Soulmate AU: all Hawke’s potential love interests have the same mark on their wrists.





	1. First Glance

**Author's Note:**

> Also college AU/modern AU. Fenris escaped from Danaruis a few months ago. Karl has been dead for a year. Things are messy.
> 
> So far I'm planning a chapter for each LI. As always, let me know if more tags/warning are needed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris meets his soulmate. And all her other soulmates.

Fenris sat on a bench under a tree, hugged his book bag and watched the noisy campus crowd.

There was plenty of time before the first lecture, and he’d already found the building it was going to be in. Yesterday he’d memorised the campus map, written up his schedule for the week and colour-coded his notebooks. He had everything organised and under control. He was going to follow the plan, look after himself, stay healthy, do the schoolwork, ace the exams, graduate, be free.

So far everything went surprisingly smoothly. Being on his own was nowhere as scary or difficult as he’d expected. Danarius always told him he’d never make it alone, he wouldn’t last a week, he’d—

Fenris squeezed his jaws together and chased the thought away.

The crowds were the only thing he still had trouble with, and he was adjusting. The trick was not to see them as a terrifying unified mass, but single out every potential threat and assess it. This man, bulky, slow, would be easy to deal with. That one, taller, would have greater reach, but didn’t seem strong enough to be a problem. That one—

A hot blond guy crouched on the grass on the other side of the foot path, petting a ginger cat. His hair was up in a messy bun, his ancient bag was mended with duct tape, and his clothes - Maker, what was he wearing? Was that a feather boa?

The blond glanced at him, as if he’d have sensed the incredulous look, and Fenris quickly turned away.

He was going over his classes schedule again when the blond approached and stood over him, the ends of his feather scarf dangling.

“Hi. Noticed you were looking,” he said. “Want to pet him?”

Fenris was going to keep his eyes down and his head low until the creep went away, but then changed his mind and stared up at the man challengingly.

The guy’s pretty hazel eyes were rimmed in smudged black eyeliner. He wore an old long-sleeved cardigan, jeans not so much ripped as worn threadbare, and a t-shirt with an involved slogan in small font over at least eight lines, which Fenris couldn’t read because the guy was hugging the cat to his chest. The tabby leisurely stretched out in his arms, dangling its paws and showing its fluffy white tummy.

“Is he yours?” Fenris asked. Nobody told him they could bring pets to class. He could probably get a bulldog.

“No, I just met him, but he’s cool and seems to be really into ear scritches. I’m Anders.”

“Fenris,” Fenris said, and instantly regretted it. If the guy was a crazy stalker, he’d just made it easy for him. “But before you get any wrong ideas, I have the name, and it’s not yours.”

He lifted his right arm to show off the red sweat band on his wrist. Danarius always made him cover up his mark, and he was used to doing that now. Most people covered theirs, he’d noticed, for whatever reasons.

“That’s all right, I have the name too,” Anders said and hitched his sleeve up a little, showing a few letters of a script crawling around his wrist. “Doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other.”

There was something wrong about his mark, something chillingly familiar. Fenris dropped his bag, grabbed Anders’ wrist and shoved his sleeve up, exposing all the letters. The startled cat yelped, twisted in Anders’ arms and leapt away, leaving red scratches on the back of his hand.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Anders yelled, trying to pull free, but he was nowhere strong enough. There it was, in the letters of same size, shape and colour as on Fenris’ wrist: Marian Hawke.

Fenris let go of him, peeled back his wristband and let him see.

They both stared at the marks, then at each other. Anders had the gall to poke at Fenris’ wrist, as if trying to check if he could rub the letters away, and Fenris even let him for a moment. Then they sat on the bench side by side, holding their wrists together, comparing letter by letter, hoping for a different spelling somewhere. It was no use: the marks were identical.

“There must have been some weird cosmic glitch,” Anders said. “She must have one of our names on her wrist. Once we find her, we’ll know which of us is the one. Then the other one would just have to, you know. Move on. We might as well stick together in the meantime, right?”

“No,” Fenris said, shaking his head. “No, I don’t accept that. I won’t just leave. I need her.”

“You need her? Well, don’t get your hopes up too much, she might not need you. Even if she has one of our names, surprise, it’s not legally binding. She might still say no.”

“If she tells me to leave her alone, I shall. But unless she does, even if she has your name… If there had been one glitch, there might be another. Her mark might be wrong. She still might choose differently.”

“She might, of course. But I wouldn’t get too invested, if I were you. If it comes down to her choice, don’t you think she’d prefer someone gentle and open-minded? Contrary to popular belief, not many women get turned on by wild and dangerous bad boys. I mean - what’s wrong with you, were you raised by wolves or something? It’s not okay to attack people! Are you going to treat Hawke like this, too?”

He shoved his wrist at Fenris, brandishing the slight redness lingering on his pale skin where Fenris had grabbed him. The scratches left by the cat where beaded with blood drops and already swelling, but Anders didn’t seem to be bothered by that.

“I’m sorry,” Fenris said. He was sweating, shivering a little like he did whenever he was yelled at. Pathetic - Anders wasn’t even yelling, he barely raised his voice. But it didn’t need much: the very idea of a confrontation was enough to start this slow build of panic in his gut. He had to learn to ignore it. “I’m only saying I’m not going to give up that easily. Her mark, whatever it is, might change. I heard sometimes they change to a completely new name.”

“Yes, you got that right, genius, they really do that,” said Anders and pulled his sleeve down, over the letters of Hawke’s name. “But not because of someone's whim, it's not some joke. Mostly they change when people fucking die!”

He seemed suddenly angrier than before, and Fenris wasn’t sure why. But he wasn’t going to shrink back and apologise again, no matter how much he wanted to. He’d been cowering before Danarius for years, and he was done with that.

“I’m not completely ruling that out as a solution,” he said instead, clenching his clammy fists to make sure his hands didn’t shake.

“See what I mean,” Anders said. “I’ve known you, what, five minutes? I’ve been nothing but nice, brought you an awesome cat to pet. And you scared him, injured me and threatened to kill me. I’m definitely not going anywhere, even if Hawke has your name. Not until I’m sure she’s safe and you’re not going to be violent.”

“You don’t know the first thing about violence. And you don’t know anything about me,” Fenris said, and that was a mistake, too. He didn’t want anyone, least of all Anders, to take that as a challenge and try to find out something about him. His past was in the past, he’d left all that behind.

“Yes, you’re not trying to make it easy to get to know you, are you? You might want to rethink your whole threateningly snarling at people approach to friendships. Honestly, why would someone like you even care about something so touchy-feely as having a soulmate?”

Fenris definitely wasn’t going to explain himself to him. He knew some people really didn’t care, even if they had the mark. They dated whoever happened to be around, even knowing their soulmate was out there somewhere, alone, longing, searching for them. Some even removed the marks from their skin, because they wanted to build their own destiny and be free in their choices, not enslaved by some predestined match-making.

They had no idea what it really meant to be free. If the mark hadn’t appeared on Fenris’ wrist, he’d still be back in Minrathous, wondering what would happen to him in the next hour, what fun game Danarius would like to play.

Hawke had saved him. She freed him. Just knowing she was out there somewhere, she was looking for him and she was going to love him, had changed everything. He was worth something, to her, if not anyone else. His life was worth something. Whatever Danarius had done to him, or still could do to him if he found him and dragged him back, Fenris knew: Hawke wouldn’t think he was damaged goods, she wouldn’t be disgusted. Whatever Danarius called him - it wasn’t true. Hawke wouldn’t believe it, she’d know better. She’d see the real him, the part that wasn’t tainted, wasn’t ruined. She’d love him, and she’d let him love her. And he’d be able to. If he was her soulmate, it had to mean that he could love her, that his heart wasn’t empty and his soul wasn’t poisoned.

All he had to do was get out and find her, and he'd finally escaped, he was free. And now her name was on this cat man’s wrist, and that meant - Fenris didn’t know what it could mean.

Anders was right about one thing. If it came down to her choice, there was little chance she’d choose Fenris. Anders was handsome, charming - even street cats liked him. He seemed carefree, well-adjusted, perfectly normal. He didn’t have years of emotional baggage dangling behind him, like a garland of chains rattling after a Victorian ghost. He wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and screaming, desperately trying to get out of bed and tangling his legs in the covers. He definitely wouldn’t feel a wave of nausea every time he thought about having sex again. He wouldn’t be wondering if he’d even be able to have sex with Hawke. If he’d figure out how to make her happy, or if she’d have to stick with him out of pity. Anders would be able to give her everything she’d need, so why would she ever—

Three women were walking toward them, tightly huddled together. The one on the left, a curvy beauty with an enormous statement necklace and her hair in big loose curls, winked at Fenris. He grimaced, a little chilled as always when someone showed interest in him, and looked away. The one on the right, a typical teacher’s pet, seemed to be in a world of her own, probably already composing final papers for every class in her head.

The one in the middle had her arms possessively slung over the others’ shoulders, hugging both women to her sides. She had nice, thick black hair that she seemed to have cut herself - Fenris had some experience on the subject. She was tall, leggy, lean, and moved with a lazy grace that told him she’d probably be a beast in a fight. There was a big port wine birthmark on her face, across her nose, and she’d made no attempt to cover it up. It looked startling, but fetching, too. Rakish.

Her face, a perfect oval with a stubborn long chin, was scrunched up in a smug asshole grin. Her eyes were bright blue, intense, gorgeous.

“Sup, nerds,” she said. “I’m your new class rep, because no other fucker turned up for the thing. I’ll be championing our interests against the Man. So, just putting myself out there, getting to know you all.”

And just like that, as if by the same divine magic that had carved a stranger’s name into his skin, he knew: she was the one.

He looked at her wrists, dangled in front of the women, but they weren’t bare. She was wearing - and if not for the certainty in Fenris’ heart, he’d taken that as another piece of proof that her and Anders were the ones meant for each other - a pair of ratty red and black striped arm warmers that came up to her elbows.

There could be both their names hidden under there. There could be these two women’s names, too. Probably half the college along with them, there was certainly plenty of space. That didn’t matter.

Fenris glanced at Anders, saw him stare at her, silent, glassy-eyed, transfixed. He knew too, Fenris could tell. That didn’t matter either.

“Hi, it’s me. I’m Fenris,” Fenris said and felt light-headed with joy when her whole face lit up at his words. She knew his name. She knew him.

Their eyes met, and it was oddly easy to hold them, to look back at her. She was pretty, he’d noticed that already, but like this, when she looked at him with this smile, she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, and he never wanted to look at anyone else.

Whatever else there was, whoever else there was, he knew - this was meant to be.

 


	2. Second Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anders tells Hawke about his past. Smut ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set a couple of weeks after last chapter.
> 
> I was going to post something fluffy and angst free for xmas week but apparently I forgot I was writing DA2 fanfic, so there's angsts: mentions of past incarceration, past character death (hi Karl), allusions to PTSD etc. But mostly this is sappy morning handers smut.

He recognised Hawke by the sound of her footsteps by now: her sure gait, the clicking of her army boots’ nailed soles. Anders smiled to himself, still floating on the edge of sleep, and waited.

She quietly slipped her key into the lock, turned it. They’d exchanged keys to their dorm rooms right after they’d made love for the first time: they’d got dressed, went out for pancakes and stopped by the key cutter. At his usual dating pace that would have been the time to exchange phone numbers, at best. Sometimes he wouldn’t even had thought to ask the bedmate’s name by then.

Hawke carefully tiptoed inside and soundlessly locked the door again. Pounce, the campus cat, had crept into Anders’ room again during the night, through the window that was kept ajar just for him. Anders always had a little dish filled with fresh water and another one with dry cat food, as well, so he couldn’t claim Pounce visited him just out of pure affection. Still, the cat usually greeted dawn curled up next to his pillow, or trying to wedge its fluffy ginger butt between his head and the headboard. Anders felt the cat’s little paws kneed the covers close to his face. Pounce tensed and lashed his tail across Anders’ cheek.

“Shh, don’t wake him,” Hawke whispered. Pounce yowled loudly and sprinted away over Anders’ naked back. He leapt out of the window onto the bike shed roof, and was gone.

Anders stayed still, keeping his eyes closed, breathing evenly in anticipation. He was going to savour this.

There was rustle of cloth, and a rasp of the zipper. It took Hawke seconds to strip - he imagined her clothes hitting the floor in a messy heap, mixing with his discarded garments, imagined her skin glowing in the morning sun, her strong silhouette haloed against the window. And then she was slowly peeling back the cover to slide into his bed, completely naked.

“I’m awake, love,” he babbled, his tongue still tied with sleep. She stretched at the edge of his narrow bed and wound her arms around him.

He clung to her, his morning erection instantly turning rock-hard. She quietly enjoyed the full-body cuddle for a moment, and then shifted a little, pushed both her arms down, wrapped one hand around his cock and began teasing him with light, twisting strokes. Her other hand cupped his balls and gave his sack a loving little tug.

“Maker, you’re gorgeous,” she sighed against his chest, kissing his nipple. Her toes were scraping his shins, curling, as if she was already near orgasm. He’d come embarrassingly quickly their first few times together, but that was fine - so did she, and he was hard and ready to go again the moment she caught her breath and reached for him. 

“Do you have the first period?” she asked, still stroking him, and his first impulse was to laugh and tell her that any of his prior engagements were cancelled if she was going to touch him like that.

“No,” he managed, rocking into her fist. “You?”

“No.”

“So does this mean I can give you head for the next hour?” he asked hopefully.

“That, obviously, sounds great, but I didn’t actually come here to have sex. I wanted to talk.”

“I think taking all your clothes off was a bit of a derailment from that goal.”

“Yeah, I also wanted to crawl all over you naked, can you blame me? Your body does things to me. Your skin, your face…”

She rolled on top of him, pressed several slow, languid kisses to his chest and pulled back a little, smiling down at him.

“You know what’s amazing?” she asked.

“You are.”

“Well, yes,” she grinned. “But I meant it in a dry sarcastic way.”

“All right,” he said, trailing his fingertips down her warm hip. “What’s amazing in a dry sarcastic way?”

“The lack of trust in this group. You know I love you, right?”

“I do. I love you too,” he said, melting against her. Wherever their skin touched the sensation was blissful, amazing, soulmate magic at work. He didn’t think it would ever be possible to get enough of her, to sate his need to simply touch her skin.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“With your life?”

“With my soul,” he said. “What’s this about, love?”

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“No,” he said, suddenly dry-throated. She kept staring at him, her eyes clever and piercing. “There’s nothing I particularly want to tell you. Can’t think of anything.”

She sighed, a little impatiently, slid off him to lie by his side and took his hand in hers.

“Okay, well, how about an ice-breaker, then, a riddle, for example. Guess how many people in our class are wanted fugitives living under false identities?”

He swallowed, again and again, blinking rapidly. It was like hammer falling: shock, of course. Relief, as well.

“One, I should hope,” he said, and managed a feeble smile. His hand was sweating in hers, but she still held it in a sure, close grip. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Anders, look at me. Don’t, it’s all right.”

“Please don’t send me back,” he pleaded, eyes shut in shame and horror, the old memories rising like a wave about to slam him under, and suddenly she was crushed against her chest and she was kissing him, fiercely. He clung to her, as if just the feel of her could keep him from shaking apart.

“Anders, love, no. Never. You’re safe. You’re always safe with me, I promise. Look at me, please, look at me.”

He breathed, in a careful way he’d practised for years, until roaring in his ears subsided and he was here again, with her, safe in her arms. He met her eyes, and she smiled at him.

“It’s three,” she said.

“What?”

“Three fugitives with fake identities. Just in our year. It’s okay. You’re not that special. Well, you are to me, obviously. But honestly, it’s fine.”

She kissed him again and rested her head on his pillow, so close her eyes were crossed a little and their noses almost touched.

“I just wanted you to know it’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to keep it from me.”

“How did you find out?”

“I know people,” she shrugged. “My best friend is in bed with Orzimmar mob. He just does things sometimes. Pays off his friends’ debts, buys protection, runs checks on their new paramours. Like a nosey fairy godmother.”

“You said he was a famous novelist.”

“Yes, same guy. You should meet, you’ll love him. He found out about you and told me, but I think I kind of knew. The way you fly off every time we talk about politics is a bit of a giveaway.”

He closed his eyes, unable to hold hers, guilt and fear a bitter spasm in his throat.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you. I thought it would be safer for you if you didn’t know.”

“What gave you the impression that I’m that into safety?”

“You’re right, yes. You have the right to know who I am. What I’ve done. What we’ve caused.”

“I’m proud of you.”

He pulled back to see her better. She was smiling, eyes shining, her glorious naked skin glowing. He was taking it all in, as if for the first time: slow rise and fall of her chest, her small breasts, still flushed from before, black soft hair under her arms. Her smile, sure and calm, fond and yes, proud.

“I wish I’d had the guts to join the protests back then,” she said. “I wanted to - well, I thought I did. But when my parents found out and grounded me it was, frankly, a relief. I didn’t really want to get clubbed by the police. And then, when we’d heard about the arrests and the trials, yes. I definitely was glad it wasn’t me going to prison for years.”

“You were just a child.”

“Hey, technically we were both teenagers then. Do you regret it?”

He pulled her close and hid his face against her neck, and breathed the sweet scents of her for a while. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Never had been, not in all those years.

“I still believe in justice,” he said. “It’s what people deserve, and we shouldn’t settle for less. I still would do anything to make the world a just and fair place. If I have to pay with my life, I pay. I’m not going back to prison, I just - I can’t. But I’d still give all I am for our freedom. It’s just, sometimes it’s difficult not to doubt. For years, all I heard was - it was our fault. The new wave of oppression, the mass arrests and tortures, everything that had happened - they said it was because of us, all those horrors were just government cracking down because of our protests. Bringing all those fresh horrors because we had the audacity to fight against lesser, much more manageable horrors.”

“You know that’s nonsense, right?”

“Is it?”

“All that is completely on those monsters that ordered and carried it out. Of course they blame you. I have a friend in the police, she sees that all the time: someone standing over a corpse, saying it was their fault, they shouldn’t have made him mad. Same thing. What you did was right. It wasn’t pretty. But it was right. Worst thing we can do against injustice is nothing.”

“Now they have justification…”

“Well, I guess, yes. But also, what they have is fear. They know we’ll fight. We’ll gather forces again, and we’ll fight. We won’t just take it forever.”

She cuddled closer to him, crossing their legs together. They rested like that, naked, free, and there was no fear, no darkness, no true regrets.

“I don’t want you to be a part of it,” he said.

“That’s not your choice. So you’re still a part of it?”

“No,” he said, hoping this whole revelation didn’t teach her enough about him and she didn’t have all his tells yet. “I’m in school right now.”

“I was going to ask. Isn’t this dangerous? You’re on the run. Enrolling, getting a diploma - that invites a dangerous level of scrutiny, doesn’t it?”

“Can’t be helped. If I want to be a real healer, I need real teachers.”

She nodded thoughtfully, resting her pointy chin on her shoulder.

“Tell me something,” she said. “About the prison. Just one thing for now, I don’t know if I can handle all of it at once.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said, but it was too late, he’d remembered. The bars, the small, small cells, the smell - every time he ran, the smell had followed him for weeks, and he couldn’t tell if it clung to his skin between washes, or seeped out of his pores like slow release poison, or of it was all just his imagination.

And the solitary, that small hatch in the door, that thick, crushing silence—

He must have started drifting. She noticed and hugged him tighter, anchoring him again.

And then he knew what he wanted to share. He pulled his arms from under the covers and showed her his wrist, adorned with her name. Claimed, owned. He loved that, always had. 

“It wasn’t always you,” he said.

He trailed his finger down her name, one words, then another.

“I had another soulmate. His name was Karl Thekla, we went to school together. They usually come in at the end of puberty, and he was three years older and an early bloomer. He’s had his for years, hidden under watch buckle, by the time I got mine. When I saw it come in I sat there all night, trying to see the words. It was like a dark mist under my skin, coming together into shifting lines - well, you remember.”

“I didn’t watch mine,” she said. “Once I realised there were going to be several I just wrapped them and left them. I thought something was wrong with me. Thought I was a freak.”

He kissed the top of her head and held her close.

“By the morning I had his name on my wrist,” he said. “Written so clearly, and I just knew, yes, of course. Couldn’t have been anything else. I ran up to him first thing at school - I didn’t even bother covering it up. I didn’t even realise he might not have the reciprocal mark. Back then, I didn’t even know that was possible. I didn’t know it was possible to have the mark and not feel anything, or even feel repulsed. I just thought - that’s it. Everything would be all right now.”

“Was it?”

“Pretty much. I went to him, and before I said anything, he knew. Of course he knew. He’d only been waiting for me for three years. He showed me his, I showed him mine, and by the end of the day we were making out behind the gym, and three years later we were living together. And two years after that we were on trial together.”

“Were you sent to the same prison?”

“For a while, yes. And that made it bearable. But then he was transferred away, and, well. It wasn’t anymore.”

He pressed his face into her shoulder and just breathed a while, calming himself with the scent of her body. Her hand was in his hair, stroking softly.

“How much do you have left on your sentence?” she asked.

“After seven escapes? I don’t even know. It’s probably life without parole by now. It doesn’t matter, I’m not going back. I can’t go back. Promise me. If they find me, if they come for me, you won’t stop me, you’ll let me do whatever it takes. I’d rather die than - I can’t go back there.”

“Anyone coming for you will choke on their own blood,” she said. “That I promise.”

She held him until the shivers subsided, and then he rolled back to brush unwelcome tears from his eyes.

“It was escape number six,” he said. “After the solitary, so everything was still strange. All the colours were off, I thought. I ran, I got in touch with - people.”

“The Collective?”

“People,” he said stubbornly. He wasn’t going to drag her into this. Even if she had some inklings to how the organisation worked, he wasn’t going to confirm or deny. “We had an opportunity to get Karl out. And we did. Two days, I’ve had him with me for whole two days. I’ve not seen him in years. He’s gone half-grey, and he had a beard. Quite hot, actually.”

She giggled and folded her arms across his chest to perch herself over him in a comfortable listening position.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

“Aimed for Ferelden, of course, home turf. Didn’t make it. He was wounded when they were taking us. I didn’t think he’d pull through. I might not be a real healer, but I know a few things. I was hoping, of course. Praying, I must have been up for thirty hours, just praying. But then the mark started fading, and I knew.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t realise… I thought it was a good memory.”

“It is,” he insisted. “He was - he was everything to me. Of course it was good. Even though I never told him I loved him, and he never said it either. Didn’t seem to need it, with our destiny already written out on our wrists. The marks mostly change when people die. Sorry, I thought you knew. There was only ever one ending to this story.”

He turned his wrist again, trying to remember how Karl’s name looked there, just four letters in the first name where hers was a sprawl. Compact consonants of his surname, where hers flew and spread like bird wings. That K in the middle - he couldn’t recall if it had been in the same place.

He remembered the loss of that final reminder. The last thing of Karl left in this world had been the words on Anders’ skin, and they were fading. He’d spent the last hours looking at the letters, trying to memorise them, kissing the barely-there lines on his own wrist, whispering strange, senseless promises. That he wouldn’t ever forget, that there would never be another. He was going to be just like his bare, blank wrist: empty, cleansed from all attachments and every shred of weakness. He would fight, no matter if he managed to escape again or not. He would be a weapon of justice.

It felts strange. The absence of the mark was something he felt daily, like an itch, like a lick of cold on his wrist. He would stare at the unmarked skin there and burn with hatred for everyone and everything that caused Karl’s death, and swore over and over to destroy it all.

He was complicit, too, of course: he got Karl into it. That was fine. He wasn’t planning to outlive the fire. All justice would be served.

But then, just a few weeks later, before he could truly put any of his plans in motion, new lines began to show. It was a formless skein at first, something he could almost imagine to be a bruise. Until the lines cleared and shifted, just like they had all those years ago, with Karl, and he couldn’t deny it any longer.

“The last time I escaped was because of you,” he said. “Until then it had been to just get away from the prison, just to breathe for a while. To try to get to Karl, to see him again. To rescue him. But when your name started to form, I realised what that would mean. If my jailers saw it, they could have found you. They could assume you were involved in the movement, since you were linked with me. They wouldn’t prove anything, of course, but I didn’t want them to harass you.”

She made an undignified sound of dismissal, flopped off him and pushed him to his side so she could spoon him and wind her arms around him.

“Then I thought - what if they are with the movement?” he carried on, feeling safer already. “There must be a reason we’re soulmates. Of course this person would feel the same way I do. What if I’m going to lead the hounds right to them? And, of course, once I started thinking about you--”

Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t even tell yet if the name was male or female, Fereldan or not. But the idea of having someone again, of loving again, being held, being seen…

He wanted that. His conviction was crumbling, and he no longer wanted to spend himself in the fight for justice. He wanted to know this person, to understand why they were linked together. Death, vengeance, burning down the corrupt regime - that didn’t seem as important and right as love, life, finding new ways toward change. Suddenly that seemed possible, all because of some lines that were converging under his skin.

“I knew that whatever happened, if they had your name they’d keep an eye on you. I’d never be able to come near you, even if I managed to run away again. And the thought was unbearable. Not just for myself - I was your soulmate, you were looking for me, waiting. You needed to know. I thought you’d be alone otherwise. I didn’t know, obviously.”

He circled her wrists with his fingers, tracing all their names. It was an immense relief to know she’d never be alone, whatever would happen to him.

“I made sure they didn’t see the mark,” he said. “Not until I was free. It took me a week to prepare my escape that time, and nobody saw your name.”

Even he hadn’t. The only way to reliably keep the mark hidden, to conceal even the fact of it, was to never let it show. He’d abraded his wrist on a rough bit of a concrete wall: scraped off just enough skin to make it scab over, but not to drip blood. That would have looked like self-harm, maybe a new attempt. That would have landed him in restraints again, and, leaving aside the fact that it was its special brand of torture, he couldn’t allow that right then. If he was restrained his skin would have healed, and they’d see the new name next time they searched his veins for a good site to inject drugs and fluids.

A light scrape just looked like a rash, like something caused by stress and poor nutrition. Every second prisoner had something like that. He kept it irritated enough so it wouldn’t heal while he put his plan in motion. Once he was out he let the scabs dry out and fall off, and her name was finally revealed, glowing there on pink, newly grown skin: Marian Hawke.

“I wasn’t going to approach you,” he said. “Well, in my better moments I believed I wouldn’t. I was going to let you know somehow, give you a message that I couldn’t be with you. Assure you it wasn’t because I didn’t want a soulmate. Ask you to move on. But then I saw you, and… And I couldn’t walk away. Couldn’t even look away. Now you know, and this might be a disaster, but I can’t…”

“Shh,” she said and rolled him onto his back, and slid on top of him. Her weight was an instant comfort even more than the embrace had been. “I’m so glad you did. I’m so happy we’re together. I’m so proud of you.”

She straddled him and kissed him, long and deep, twined their fingers together and pressed his hands into the pillow. He lay there, pinned, taken, relishing the feel and the weight of her body and this feeling of helplessness, being claimed, being used for her pleasure.

He was hard again. She rocked against him, first rubbing her hip along his straining length, and then lined up so the mound of her sex pressed against his erection. She humped him softly, rocking into him, first too lightly for him to get off, then almost too hard, but that was perfect. He wouldn’t want to come like this anyway, not until he had the chance to please her.

He let his eyes roll closed, feeling the sinuous movement of her hips, and wondered if she’d like to fuck him with a toy some day. She seemed quite at home on top.

She kissed him one last time, broke away and straddled him, her knees on the bed, and put her hands on his cock.

She ran one open hand over the head of his cock, softly, softly, letting it brush against her palm and leave sticky spots on her skin, and pulled on the shaft with the other, lovingly massaging the underside with her fingers.

“And I’m so horny for you,” she said. “Honestly, your dick drives me crazy. And the rest of you. Do you want to have sex?”

“With you, always,” he managed, watching her rise up on her knees, her long thigh muscles shifting. “There’s never even a moment when I’m not--”

She lined him up and then he was sliding inside, and she was so wet, so tight around him, and for a moment he could only groan and arch under her, pleasure arcing through his body like lightning.

“Maker, you’re so good,” she muttered and rolled her hips, angling him inside her toward her sweet spot, and then pulling back a little, to tease herself. “So, so good.”

The praise, the look of affection, her wide, happy smile - all of that was almost better, almost hotter than the feeling of her cunt greedily clamped around him. Almost, but really, there was no contest for this. He softly thumbed at her clit, not pushing her toward an orgasm yet, just heightening the sensations a little. He wouldn’t clamp his hands onto her hips - he didn’t want to control her movements, he loved watching her choose and change her pace, intensity, angle, the depth. He stroked teasing waves over her thighs, around the ticklish spots on her waist, reached up to cup her breasts as she began to ride him, slowly and thoroughly at first, making every stroke as long and sweet as possible. She put one hand on his chest - she wasn’t leaning on it, even though her weight would be welcome against his hammering heart that felt ready to burst with love. He burrowed her fingers in the sparse fuzz on his chest, and he curled his hand around her wrist and rocked his hips up, in counterpoint with her thrusts, trying to get in just a tiny bit deeper every time she ground against him on the downstroke.

She rode him faster and faster. Sweat gleamed on her chest, over her breastbone, between her small bouncing breasts. He ran his fingers through it, making her groan and giggle and the same time, and slid his thumb pad over her clit again, feeling it swollen now, this time giving it a little more friction and pressure.

“Yes,” she moaned, put her hand over his and directed him in a couple of impatient strokes, and he knew he picked up just the right spot and intensity when her breathy sighs turned into gasps and short happy grunts.

She slammed down at him with a lot of brute strength: if his dick were to slip out just then, she could injure him, but the tiny thrill of danger only made it more exciting. She stilled, with him buried deep inside her, arched back, digging her fingers and her blunt short fingernails into the skin of his thighs, and shuddered, squeezed him in a wave after rolling wave.

“So good, so good, you’re amazing,” she groaned, still tightening inside, and that was it, he was gone - he wanted to ask her if it would be all right for him to come, or if she wanted to ride him some more, into her second orgazm, but he couldn’t hold back any longer. It hit him like a burst of light, and he was coming, shooting right inside her, surrounded by her slick, trembling walls.

She leaned to kiss him, awkwardly shifting her tired limbs, and his cock slipped out of her, still mostly hard, wet and sticky. She petted the shaft softly, minding the sensitive head, and stretched alongside him.

He was about to offer to clean her up with her tongue later, to make sure her panties wouldn’t be ruined while she sat at this morning’s lecture. For some reason he was still a little shy about asking her for favours, in bed and out.

She reached across him and plucked up his phone from under his pillow, where he kept it to make sure he wouldn’t sleep through the alarm. It happened sometimes when the insomnia piled enough sleep deprivation on him. His body eventually shut off and he’d sleep like the dead, trying to catch up.

“Oh, crap,” she said. “We have to go to class.”

They showered together, trying not to linger on each other’s soapy bodies, and then threw their clothes on over hastily towelled skin and walked to the lectures together, holding hands.

“You have no time for breakfast,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s fine, I’ll eat an energy bar at the lecture,” he lied smoothly. He’d been eating a lot better lately: all the sex was fantastic for his errant appetite. But he wasn’t fine yet, and he wasn’t going to worry her needlessly. He would recover on his own time.

“Isabela wants us to have a threesome,” Hawke said. “Would you be into that?”

“Sure, if you are,” he said. He didn’t have any hangups about being naked and freaky with more than one person at once, as long as it was what they all wanted.

“We haven’t really talked about anything like that yet,” Hawke said. “I’ve just been making frantic vanilla love to your beautiful penis since the day we met, we didn’t get into anything else.”

“I’m really not complaining,” he said, still feeling the shadow of pleasure she’d given him. His cock stirred just at the memory.

“Me neither, but we’re soulmates. We should be able to share anything. And I don’t even know what do you like. Sexually, I mean. Kinks and stuff.”

“Yes, I think we’re close enough now for me to tell you the truth. I don’t know if you’re ready for it, brace yourself. It’s kind of wild.”

“Right,” she said, grinning, not a shadow of nervousness or apprehension.

“You know, all the things you like? Sexually and otherwise? Kinks and stuff, dreams, whims, weird fancies? It would be my pleasure and honour to give all that to you.”

“Well, yes, because you love me,” she said and went onto her tiptoes to peck him on the lips. “But, for you--”

“No, that’s for me. That’s what I’m sexually about.”

She stared at him with her lips a little parted, her cheeks colouring the sweetest pink, and her eyes slowly lit up with understanding and appreciation.

“Oh,” she said. “Well then, it would be my pleasure and privilege to accept.”

She tugged him closer to kiss him again. This one was slow, thorough and deep, and her fingers were in his hair, twisting just a little bit too hard, and he trembled against her, wanting her desperately.

“So, do you, what do you like,” he panted, still holding her close.

“I am a bit boring,” she said. “I just like sex and orgasms, I guess. I don’t think I have any kinks. Well, no, wait, I do have one now.”

She kissed him again, her teeth sharp against his lower lip, and then just held him in her arms in the middle of the campus like he was something precious, her nose buried in his hair.

“What about the others?” he asked. “I kind of always assumed we were heading toward a fivesome.”

“Would that be all right?”

“Sure. They’re all gorgeous.”

“That’s true,” she hummed appreciatively and broke away from him, took his hand again and they carried on down the path together.

“Well,” she said. “Merrill is ace, so no. Fenris… Me and Fenris haven’t had sex yet. I don’t know if we will, we’ll see.”

“What did he do, by the way?”

“Hm?”

“You said we had three no-good lying criminals in the class,” Anders said. “I assume he’s one of them, because if we had someone more nervous and twitchy than him I think I’d have noticed.”

“Right, that. Yes, good guess.”

“Well, I didn’t think he was a criminal until you said so,” Anders clarified. “I thought he was a veteran, they have this certain mix of jumpy and distant. Which, fair enough, doesn’t preclude criminal life. The only veterans I knew I’d met in prison. It’s kind of a pipeline, just like the one from the Alienage.”

“Hey, what the hell?” Hawke said, bristling. “I’m a veteran! I was at Ostagar!”

“Yes, and weren’t you in a gang after?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, deflating from her righteous anger. “Yes, you’re right, I suppose, veterans have limited options, really. But no, Fenris didn’t serve. He stole some money from a guy in Minrathous, someone called Danarius. I think that’s how he can afford school.”

“Stole money? Like, pickpocketed? No, even in Minrathous people don’t walk around with that much money. I’m sure he wasn’t a con artist, you have to be charming first.”

“Oh,” Hawke stretched her arms over her head, fondly smiling at a memory. “Just you wait until he warms up to you. The charm hits like a truck when he wants it to.”

“Hm,” Anders shrugged, remembering the pinched, perpetually annoyed expression on Fenris’ pretty face. “I’m looking forward to that, I guess. Oh, was he a cat burglar? He certainly has the body for it.”

“Not really. He lived in the guy’s house. Worked as a bodyguard, apparently. Then one day took the money and left. So, no burglary, just theft, I know my penal code.”

“There’s no extradition to Tevinter,” Anders said. He’d considered running there at some point, but he was needed here, where the fight was. “But, I suppose, assumed identity is safer anyway.”

“Yes, Danarius keeps sending bounty hunters after him. But the reason he had to forge the papers for the college was because he didn’t have his real papers. As in, he doesn’t think he’s ever had a passport, or a birth certificate, or anything like that.”

“How’s that even possible?”

“I don’t know. I asked him how long did he live with Danarius, and he just shrugged and said ‘Probably forever’.”

“What the hell,” Anders muttered, shuddering just from the thought.

“Yeah, Tevinter is a fucked up place. Try to be nicer to him, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, and she kissed him again, and again, and again.

Then her phone alarm beeped, which, as he already knew, she set to get to class on time. She took her perfect attendance record very seriously.

“I have to go,” she muttered, planting last tiny kiss on his lips. “I love you. You have to go too.”

“Yes. I love you too. I’ll see you soon.”

“Lunch?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll invite Isabela for Friday night? My place, see what happens.”

“Sure.”

She stepped away from him, still clutching at his fingertips, as if she couldn’t bear to let go.

“Who’s the third one?” he asked, only as an excuse to keep her here a few seconds longer.

“Third what?”

“The criminal with a fake identity.”

“Oh, that’s Isabela.”

“Really,” Anders said, wondering if it was strange that all three of them clustered around the same woman, of it that made perfect sense. “What did she do?”

“She killed her husband. Cool, right? Stabbed him dead. That’s not what she’s wanted for, there’s bunch of other murders, but piracy, mostly. She’ll tell you herself on Friday, if you’re interested.”

She ran toward the lecture hall, and stopped at the entrance to wave at him. He waved back, smiling.

“Bunch of other murders?” he muttered under his breath. “Oh well. Should be fun.”


End file.
